In this ever changing world with more demanding customers (increased customization of products, shrinking product lifecycle times, shorter delivery times), increasing margin pressures and intense market competition, innovation is the single most important factor for sustained long-term growth of a firm. Enterprises are realizing the importance of innovation to gain competitive advantage. From manufacturing processes to product improvement, brand building initiatives to customer experience, companies the world over are constantly innovating to stay ahead of the competition.
Supply chain management is one of the few areas that have ample room for innovation. Innovations help in making the supply chain more responsive, flexible and efficient. Supply chain innovation can be used to reduce costs, offer better assortment of customer centric products, decreasing time to market and driving growth. Companies like P&G, Wal-Mart, Dell and many more have identified supply chain as one of the key focus areas for innovation. Aqua MCG, with its focus on the supply chain management field, is uniquely positioned to help you innovate in this largely unexplored area of operation.
Some of the key innovation areas are:
· Innovations in product development (NPD) and improving the product development process (efficiently gauging customer expectations, decreasing time to market, decreasing investment costs etc.)
· Innovations in manufacturing processes
· Innovation in products can either be
o Creating entirely new set of products
o Developing products that help you tap an entirely new set of customers/geographies
· Innovations in reaching out to the customer and enhancing the customer experience
Some of the key questions in supply chain innovations:
· How to decide which part of the supply chain we need to innovate in? We need to perform an analysis to identify where innovation will be less difficult (in terms of technology, organisation change and behavioural change) and higher returns are possible.
· How to roll out these innovations in your supply chain in a short time? This requires detailed planning, change management, pilot runs.
· How to use the plethora of emerging technologies to the best effect?
· IT strategy: How to use innovations in IT/ITES to further improve your supply chain, product development, customer experience, transportation and logistics etc.
· How to maximize your ROI in your internal IT operations?
· How to measure your firm’s performance in each of the innovations carried out by the firm?
· Innovation today is no longer an in-house driven practice controlled by one firm. How to effectively collaborate with the partners, suppliers and customers in driving innovation?
Aqua MCG helps clients in tapping the benefits of innovation across all aspects of their supply chain to gain a competitive advantage and market leadership. |